William Grant chooses its first Indian brand ambassador

William Grant & Sons – the Scottish distillation company that procures premium scotch whiskies and selected categories of spirits – has picked up its brand ambassador in India. The company launched a unique search campaign to choose the ambassador where none can apply for the job on his own.

‘The Awesome Job’ – a month long campaign through which it searched for the face of Grant’s whisky brand in the country – received 1,350 recommendations from friends and acquaintances of the candidates through various social media platforms. A Gurgaon boy, Rohan Bhardwaj, who holds an MBA degree from University of Wales is going to be the first Indian to become one of the 60 brand ambassadors for the company. William Grant & Sons is a family-owned liquor manufacturer established in 1887 which owns whisky brands such as Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Grant’s and Hendrick’s Gin.

According to Shweta Jain, India marketing director of William Grant, the company’s “new approach” towards choosing its ambassador is not new. “As a company we always chose different ways of doing things, deviating from the conventional approaches”, she said. Although, the company sold some 40,000 cases of whisky in 2014 in the country, it is aiming to increase sales “with the current double digit growth”.

While, the centenarian distiller “is looking up to India as its key market in the future”, the campaign helped to increase its followers in the social media platforms too. “Grant’s India’s facebook followers shoot up to more than 91,000 due to the campaign”, K. V. Sridhar, chief creative officer of SapientNitro – the marketing and creative services company that conducted the programme – said.